Dreams about the Queen

In 1972, 20 years after the Queen's accession to the throne, Brian Masters wrote a book called Dreams about H.M. the Queen. Masters wrote to everyone he knew and put adverts in newspapers, asking Her Majesty's subjects to send him summaries of the dreams about her that interrupted their sleep. As he describes it in his memoir, Getting Personal, 'the Queen was depicted driving a lorry up the M1, running a post-office, travelling with her family to the State Opening of Parliament on the Piccadilly Line, in full regalia and crown, because it was quicker than fighting one's way through traffic. Nearly all of them involved a cup of tea. I especially liked the one sent in by a housewife from Leeds who had met the Queen on a bus and invited her to tea ("I expect you don't get much chance of an ordinary good cuppa, do you, love?") and, when the Queen arrived and knocked on the door of her terraced cottage, she sheepishly confessed, "I hope you don't mind, I've brought my mother along too". The Queen Mother was hiding round the corner in gunboots, awaiting permission to be included.'

Masters's own dream 'concerned my turning up for dinner at Buckingham Palace and noticing, as I sat down, that I had forgotten to put on any clothes at all. As I fumbled to protect myself with a horribly small napkin, the Queen and her exceedingly well-bred family made no allusion whatever to my nakedness, but chatted on as if nothing were amiss.'